Hastily storing away his Crimson World Sealing Jar, Prince Cang San braced as a gargantuan golden fist shot straight for his face. Without hesitation, Prince Cang San raised both his arms to welcome the golden fist.
With a loud bang, Prince Cang San could be seen whizzing around the night sky, a light trickle of blood falling behind him.
"Your Highness!" Hundreds of saints and dozens of half deities all yelled out in unison as they watched Prince Cang San fall toward the ground at unbelievable speeds. Very similar to what had happened to Diyu Ding Zhe, Prance Cang San's body slammed into the cold hard earth, causing him to roll and tumble a few times before coming to a full stop.
Coughing out one mouth full of blood after the other, Prince Cang San slowly tried to push his body up from the ground, one of his arms appearing limp and without strength.
"Qu-quickly… St-sto-stop him…" Prince Cang San managed to say with great difficulty.
Whilst the sudden turn of events had left Prince Cang San in an extremely pitiful state, diverting most of his attention, more troubles were brewing within his interspatial ring. Mixed in with a wide variety of magical treasures, essence stones of different colors and other miscellaneous items, the Crimson World Sealing Jar was still vibrating erratically.
As time went on, the vibrations that shook the Crimson World Sealing Jar had actually caused minute cracks to appear on it's smooth surface.
Back outside under the gaze of a bright moon and the dark curtain of night, the dozen or so half deities under Prince Cang San had ceased all activity and rushed to protect their leader.
A few half deities could be seen fleeing from the golden giant while holding onto Prince Cang San, while hundreds of saints and a few other half deities could be seen employing a wide variety of different magics and treasures.
Sadly under the influence of four Golden Soul Extinguishing Pills, Chi Yan was akin to a juggernaut, impervious to everything sent toward him.
"Keep attacking! Even if we can slow him down for a second, we have to stall him as long as we can until the effects of the pills expire!" A half deity level monk from the Profound Nirvana Temple could be heard saying.
"Looks like it's time for me to join in on the fun." Zhang muttered as his gaze upon the battlefield below him sharpened.
"Come out." Zhang commanded moments before a floating orb appeared in front of him. In a few instants later, the floating orb was covered in flickering snakes of lightning before congealing into a large dragon made purely of lightning.
"Let's begin our attack." Zhang said softly as red lightning wrapped around his arms. Before long the bellowing of a mighty dragon shook the heavens and caused the earth to quake.
"What now…" A few of the battling saints sighed as they noticed flashes of white and red being emitted from the layer of clouds above them.
As if the heavens were unleashing it's fury upon the world, a shower of whitish gold and red lightning began to descend, piercing through clouds while causing the atmosphere itself to burn.
The rumbling of thunder, the roaring of heavenly tribulation lightning deafened and blinded the foreign saints and half deities as Zhang's wrath was enacted.
Like flies, a few of half deities fell from the sky, leaving trails of smoke behind them. On the other hand, a dozen or so saints were turned into ash, scattering to the four directions. Their body, their soul and their very being was erased from existence upon coming into contact with the blend of lightning being released from Zhang and his homunculus lightning dragon.
"Strike them all! Every foreign saint and half deity that has come here today is our enemy." Zhang commanded the lightning dragon.
"Haha! Look at what has become of your forces Cang San! Regardless of how well you've plotted and planned, the heavens have eyes and this is its retribution for your sins!" Chi Yan laughed as his body visibly began shrinking until it became all shriveled up and then breaking apart into dust.
"Tch, the last words of a dying loser." Prince Cang San muttered while clicking his tongue, his condition somewhat stabilizing after someone had given him a handful of various pills.
"Your Highness, by careful!" One of the half deities beside Prince Cang San yelled as a blue colored piece of jade appeared in his hand. Crumbling the blue jade, the half deity summoned a semi transparent bubble, shielding himself and Prince Chang San from a bolt of crimson red lightning.
With a loud bang, the semi transparent bubble shattered into thousands of glass like shards before fading away.
"Crimson colored lightning? Who dares attack this prince!" Prince Cang San yelled as he quickly realized no one that arrived with him from the upper realms utilized crimson colored lightning in their attacks.
Rather than a response in words, Prince Cang San soon found himself the target of yet another dozen or so bolts of lightning, some crimson red while others an eerie pale white and gold.
"Your Highness, worry not, luckily I have brought quite a few protective jades!" The half deity beside Prince Cang San said as four blue colored jades appeared in his palm, all of which were soon crushed into bits, summoning four semi-transparent bubbles.
With four loud consecutive explosions, the four semi-transparent bubbles all shattered after being struck by lightning, causing the half deity beside Prince Cang San to shutter in fear.
"You can try to defend however long you want, but while dragging around someone so heavily injured you won't make it very far." Zhang thought as he unleashed another barrage of lightning from up above the clouds.
"Show yourself, coward!" Prince Cang San roared despite his injuries, upon seeing even more lightning falling from the sky. Since he was trying to escape from Chi Yan, Prince Cang San and his bodyguard had flown too far from the other foreign saints and half deities, leaving them stranded and without help.
Without anyone to come to his aid, Prince Cang San reluctantly without the Crimson World Sealing Jar once again, hoping to use it to shield himself from Zhang's attack.
Tossing the crimson-colored jar into the air while muttering a strange incantation, Prince Cang San failed to notice a small crack that had appeared on the once smooth surface of his divine treasure. Had he noticed this crack, perhaps the following events would have never occurred, however sometimes fate often plays cruel tricks upon the weary.
Under Prince Cang San's control, the Crimson World Sealing Jar began expanding itself, growing much larger then it's original size. A faint smile could be seen on the prince's face as a scene of himself being shielded by the Crimson World Sealing Jar played out in his mind, his divine treasure would protect him fro Zhang's attack and before long more of his subordinates would come to his aid, resolving this life-threatening disaster he had found himself in.
Had things played out like this, perhaps the Wuling Continent would have not fallen into calamity.
Like a raging dragon, Zhang's bolt of lightning reared its fangs toward Prince Cang San, and in turn the Crimson World Sealing Jar. Before long tens of lightning bolts collided with the now enlarged crimson jar, causing sparks to fly across the night sky before the unbelievable occurred.
"Ho-how…" Prince Cang San muttered as he watched dozens of cracks appear on his most precious treasure. Little did Prince Cang San know, within the Crimson World Sealing Jar, Diyu Ding Zhe had actually consumed all of the saints and half deities trapped along with him. After absorbing the essence and divine energy within a hundred odd saints and a dozen or so half deities, Diyu Ding Zhe was brimming with strength, so much strength that with repeated attempts he was actually able to cause a crack to appear on the Crimson World Sealing Jar.
One must know that treasures that contained the ability to trap others, were often fragile on the outside while being extremely steady on the inside.
Thanks to this crack created by Diyu Ding Zhe, Zhang's lightning was able to deal double if not triple the amount of damage it would have inflicted.
Under Zhang's bombardment of lightning, the cracks on the Crimson World Sealing Jar snacked and multiplied, causing Prince Cang San's heart to sink.
"Ttake me as far from here as possible! If the jar breaks, the resulting explosion will kill us if we stay this close!" Prince Cang San said to the half deity beside him.
"Break for me!" Zhang said as a shiny gold coin appeared in between his fingers. Charged with lightning from both Zhang and the Tribulation Lightning Dragon, the shiny gold coin traveled at speeds faster then the eye could see, smashing into and piercing through the Crimson World Sealing Jar.
"BOOOOOOM"
The Crimson World Sealing Jar that had imprisoned Diyu Ding Zhe was no more, however, the resulting explosion caused space itself to rip as everything within its general radius was blown away.
As the aftermath of the massive explosion began clearing up, Prince Cang San could be seen laying nearly lifeless on the ground, his bodyguard not too far from him and not in much better shape. Zhang who was well hidden above a sea of clouds was now in full view after his cover was blown away.
"How is he still able to…" Zhang mumbled, slackjawed as he witnessed Diyu Ding Zhe levitating in front of Prince Cang San, with only half of his body remaining. Missing an arm, a leg and a good portion of his abdomen, Diyu Ding Zhe looked extremely frightening.
Quickly snapping himself out of the daze he was in, Zhang quickly shot more lightning from his fingertips, in an attempt to end things once and for all.
"This new vessel with do…" Diyu Ding Zhe said in a barely recognizable voice as his remaining arm latched onto Prince Cang San, strange rune appearing on it and shifting onto the unconscious prince's body.
Once nearly half of the runes that were on Diyu Ding Zhe's body had shifted over to Prince Cang San's body, Zhang's lightning reached its target, sending powerful waves of energy in the form of snaking bolts of lightning across Diyu Ding Zhe's tattered body, blowing it to bits.
With glowing runes still visible on them, Diyu Ding Zhe's limbs littered the ground as Prince Cang San's eyes suddenly opened.
"ARGGGHHHHH!!" Prince Cang San roared as his hands hugged his head after sitting upright. Sweat condensed and dripped down from his brow as his facial expressions changed sporadically, appearing as if two different wills for contesting for the same body.
Before Zhang could send more lightning raining down from the sky, Prince Cang San's arm reached for the unconscious half deity beside him, his shadow expanding forth very much so like when Diyu Ding Zhe utilized his Heavenly Devouring Technique.
In a flash, the half deity beside Prince Cang San was turned into a dried up husk before his remains were absorbed into the shadows.
'You-You! You dared to attack me! You! You ruined my revival and my plans to kill that bastard!" Prince Cang San roared as he stared at Zhang, his voice changing in pitch and appearing to belong to two different people as he spoke.
Flickering and disappearing from where he was on the ground, Prince Cang San appeared from out of nowhere in front of Zhang, his fists balled up and rage swelling in his eyes.
"Shit… The two of them fused…" Zhang thought as his body quickly shot backward creating distance between himself and Prince Cang San.